This invention relates to a therapeutic bed for home and institutional use and more particularly to a therapeutic bed which incorporates traction for patients with neck and back problems, such as fractures, and includes methods of alignment of certain orthopedic problems, promotion of postural drainage and other features for the convenience and treatment of patients.
Present devices for applying traction involve the use of pulleys and weights and skull pins for cervical traction; said devices hang outside the bed frame, are awkward and can be knocked loose or down, causing pain and interrupting the therapeutic steady pull traction requires.
A variety of beds have been designed with some of these problems in mind, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,837,751, 3,430,956, 3,589,715, 3,722,010, and 4,188,677. None of these patents deals specifically with the application of traction but they show a variety of mechanisms for altering the position of the patient. They deal with specific types of adjustments, some of them are quite complicated.